


miles to go before i sleep

by QueenWithABeeThrone



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Amnesia, Episode Tag, Fix-It, Gen, Resurrection, Second person POV, Temporary Character Death, major spoilers I'M SORRY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 19:23:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15274563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWithABeeThrone/pseuds/QueenWithABeeThrone
Summary: Your name is Mollymauk Tealeaf. You’re a member of the Mighty Nein.or: Molly wakes up. (MAJOR SPOILERSfor ep 26.)





	miles to go before i sleep

**Author's Note:**

> title is from Robert Frost's "[Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42891/stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening).
> 
> BRING MY BOY BACK TO ME.

You wake up, wrapped in a tapestry, dirt covering your face and getting in your nostrils.

You choke on the dirt. You claw a hand up, and somehow you break through the ground easily—whatever happened to you, someone didn’t care enough to bury you deep. It stings, more than the dirt creeping into your lungs does, but at least it’s convenient.

You scrabble through the dirt, finding purchase on something like two swords, crossed over each other. You pull yourself up, and blink.

They’re scimitars. One is made of gold, the other is made of painted glass. Jewelry hangs from their hilts, sun and moon baubles glinting in the moonlight. You start to think that someone did care—enough to bury you, enough to put something that looks like _yours_ over your grave to mark it.

There’s a note dangling from one of the hilts. It’s a yellowed, dirtied page, ripped from someone’s journal, and it reads: _Mollymauk Tealeaf, member of the Mighty Nein._ You take it off the hilt, almost reverent, like you’re holding something holy.

Your name is Mollymauk.

You hadn’t known that until now. You hadn’t realized you didn’t know your name, didn’t know anything, were only _empty empty empty_ , but now you have it, and you hold it close to your chest.

Someone buried you in a coat of many colors, a tapestry of the Platinum Dragon. You turn the page over and read: _if you’re reading this, Molly, we’re in Shady Creek Run. Come find and yell at us for leaving you in a grave, but we didn’t know how to bring you back, and it worked once before._

In a different, spikier handwriting, someone else has written: _if you don’t remember, we left a map in your coat._

This has happened to you once before: the dirt, the shallow grave, the moonlight streaming down onto your body, the heavy tongue, the word _empty empty empty_ rattling around your head. But you—you trust these words, somehow, despite the fact that they belong to the people who apparently left you here. This was the only plan they had, and apparently it worked. After all, you’re right here.

Although you aren’t quite sure where _here_ is. You pat your coat down, and find a map, with YOU ARE HERE around some random location. That’s. Useful. Probably.

You pick up the swords. You fuss with the jewelry, figuring out how they fit onto your horns. You _have_ horns. You have horns, and a tail, and the tail swings behind you, aching every so often like you sat on it wrong. How long did you spend underground? You’re not sure. You just have to go to Shady Creek Run, and that’s—not too far away from here, you think.

They left a waterskin and some wrapped up bacon, whoever this Mighty Nein is. They were hoping you’d come back, and soon. They made sure you’d know to come back to them.

Warmth blooms like a flower in your chest. You stagger to your feet, swords in place, note tucked in a pocket, jewelry swinging from your horns, and you make your way to the road.

\--

There’s a man in a black, feathered cloak on the road, playing with daggers.

You stop in your tracks and blink at him. You—don’t know who he is, don’t know what he is, other than a half-elf with those ears and those cheekbones. You just halt in your footsteps, and your heart hammers against your chest, like a rabbit trying to get out of its cage.

He glances at you, and huffs out a breath.

“Aren’t you a sight,” he says, standing up.

You don’t answer. The words sit heavy on your tongue, and you swallow them back. You rest a hand on the hilt of your sword, and you think of the note in your pocket. There are people waiting for you. There are people who want you back.

The half-elf cocks his head to the side, then sheathes his daggers and holds his hands up. “Slow down, there, little guy,” he says. “You’re Mollymauk, aren’t you?”

You nod.

“That’s good, I was almost afraid it’d be the other one,” he says, and you frown at him. Other one? “Your friends—ah, made a bargain with my goddess, as it were. They didn’t know what else to do, but they wanted you back, whatever the cost. They contacted your goddess, too, but this is the domain of mine.”

His goddess?

_The Raven Queen,_ comes the whisper in the back of your head. You shut your eyes and try to shake it off, but you stumble and steady yourself on a fallen tree.

“Yeah, I know,” says the half-elf. He sits down next to you. “She accepted, by the way, and it helped that your goddess was intervening for you too. Your friends are all right, although they’re taking it pretty badly. You’re a part of their group. They didn’t want to lose you, especially not after they lost the others.”

You bring out the note and look down at it again. You have friends. You have people who missed you enough to bargain with a goddess to bring you back, and others that you lost, too. You wish you could remember them.

“I can take you up to the Run,” says the half-elf. “Don’t worry about bandits on the road. I’ll take care of those—you focus on finding your friends.”

\--

It takes two days to get up to Shady Creek Run.

You know this because the half-elf, who says his name is Vax, also says as much. You don’t exactly trust him, but he’s amiable enough, and beyond a small prank involving your golden scimitar on the first day (which he promised never to do again when you fell to your knees and started muttering _empty empty empty_ to yourself), he’s not actively trying to fuck you.

You’re learning a couple of things as you go along:

Your name is Mollymauk Tealeaf. You’re a member of the Mighty Nein, a party of adventurers. You died when they tried to ambush a bunch of slavers who took your friends. You have strange abilities in your blood, but you’re not sure how to make them go. You were buried in a shallow grave, because your friends made a deal with a goddess.

You ask Vax what the cost, once, cramming words under the note you have on you.

“A life for a life,” he says. “In this case, a vampire’s life for yours.” He shrugs, and says, “But they have time. And you have time—try not to throw it away. Again. You’re already on your third strike.”

You nod, promising. The jewelry on your horns tinkle, and you’re caught off your guard by the sound of metal clinking against metal.

He nods back, and squeezes your shoulder. “Go to bed,” he says, and you can’t see any traces of exhaustion in his eyes. You can see, however, the sadness there, the determination to see this through. “I’ll take watch.”

You do as he asks, keeping a hand on the hilt of your sword.

When you wake up, he’s still there, putting out the fire. “Come on, we’re almost there,” he says, encouraging, and holds his hand out. You take his hand—it’s calloused and scarred, a little like yours are. You let him help you up, and you follow him down the road.

\--

“Stay close,” he tells you, pulling his hood up and taking you by the hand as the two of you step into Shady Creek Run. It’s a ramshackle town, and everyone who passes by the two of you gives you a dirty look. Or a hungry look. Or both.

But they don’t do much more than that. You don’t think it’s you. Vax exudes some kind of aura of power, the kind that says he knows just how dangerous he is, in comparison to this whole town combined, and is only keeping it in check because his task is to escort you, safe and sound.

“You sort of remind me of my sister, you know,” he says, as he takes the two of you through an alleyway with no fear in his step. You catch sight of shadows slinking away, and you can’t help it, you toss your head a little. The metal trinkets clink and gleam, and the emptiness inside you, half-filled now with the knowledge that people are waiting for you, fills up just a little more. “She likes little trinkets too. And she does like catching people’s attention.”

You like his sister already.

He skirts around another street. You follow.

He clambers onto a rooftop. You follow him up even there, although he has to clamber down to help you up—you’re still learning how your limbs work, how your tail works, and you step on your own tail trying to get up by yourself. It’s embarrassing.

He hops down. You don’t hop down, you gingerly and carefully lower yourself down using a system of ladders and stairs.

Eventually, he leads you to a bar. The sign depicts a man, hanging upside-down, and below that depiction are the words _The Hanged Man_.

You take a step closer. Another. Then another.

You stop in front of the door, and rest your hand against it, lavender and tattoo-covered skin against half-rotted old wood. You have come so far, now, but you wonder if—

They buried their friend. They wanted him to come back to them, wanted their friend who liked baubles and knew how to use his weird blood powers and followed a goddess you don’t remember and _knew them_.

You like baubles, but that’s the only thing you know that you have in common with their dead friend. That and the name: _Mollymauk Tealeaf_.

You back up a step. Will they still be there? Worse—will they still accept you? What if they only want their friend, and not someone who wears his name, his face, his jewelry and his coat? What if when they see you, hear the word of _empty empty empty_ spilling out past your lips, what if they _hate_ you for taking their friend from them? They made a deal for him, not you.

Vax steps up beside you. You turn to him.

He smiles, soft and sad. “It’s worth a try,” he says.

You turn to the door again. You breathe the fresh air in, breathe out. Your heart beats steadily against your ribcage, in time to the music that drifts out from the bar.

You push the door open.

\--

“ _Molly!_ ”

“I told you it would work! I’m the greatest detective!”

“Holy fuck, I didn’t think that would _work_ , I thought they were crazy for thinking it—”

“Mollymauk, you _arschloch_ , you’re here—”

\--

They take you up to their rooms: the dirty wizard, the foul-mouthed monk, the half-drunk goblin, the dwarven woman sporting a mess of stubble on her ruddy cheeks. You’re trying to keep up the smile, keep up the façade—maybe if you pretend you’re their friend, they won’t turn you out.

Beauregard, the monk, shuts the door behind you, and says, “Okay, everybody, stop crowding him. He _just_ came back from the dead and I gotta do some checks.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” says the dwarven woman, named Keg. “People don’t just up and walk out of their graves. Not even if you make deals with freaky death goddesses.”

“Molly’s a special little snowflake,” says Nott the goblin, sardonic, as she gets into your lap. You lean back, instinctually, and she smacks your shoulder. “Lemme check!” she says, touching your forehead. “Okay, he’s fine,” she reports.

“Oh, good,” says Caleb, the wizard. “We’re sorry we had to do that to you, Mollymauk, but it was the best way. We didn’t have our cleric and we can’t afford one in this town, but Nott had said—”

“If it happened before, it’ll happen again,” says Nott, lifting her chin proudly up.

“And I remember what you said,” says Caleb, “when you were telling us how you came out of that grave, the first time, so, um.”

“We made a deal,” says Beau. “Kill a vampire, set fire to his necromantic bullshit, make sure he can’t rip a hole in the fabric of reality to get his wife back. Nothing big.” She shrugs, casually, but there’s something restless about how she moves, bouncing on the balls of her feet. You wonder, guiltily, if the price they paid was worth it. Worth you. “But anyway. We’re checking you here, so—say something. Anything.”

You open your mouth to say something, but all that comes out is, “Empty.”

There’s a silence.

“Shit,” says Nott.

“That’s something,” says Keg.

“Can you tell us your name?” says Beau, stepping in closer.

You back up, and your back hits the wall, and you try to say something, _anything_ , but all you can come up with is, “ _Empty._ ” Oh, gods, they know. They know you’re false, they know you’re not their friend, they know their deal failed and they didn’t bring him back the way they wanted you and you are nothing to them you’re only _empty empty empty_ —

“—Mollymauk?”

You blink.

Somehow you’ve slumped to the ground, your hands pulling painfully on your hair, close to ripping clumps of it out from your scalp. The three women are standing back, with Beau keeping Nott and Keg at bay, and Caleb is in front of you. Touching you. Holding you close.

“Mollymauk,” he says, quiet. “I am glad you’re back. In any way, shape or form, I would rather have you alive than _dead_.” His voice cracks on the last word, and his grip grows tighter. “We are the Mighty Nein, do you understand? You are a part of this group, no matter what you remember, no matter what you may call yourself from here on out. If you do not like being _Mollymauk_ , that is all right with us, we will call you whatever name you fancy. Do you understand?”

You stare up at him, the words sinking in. You look at the rest of the little group.

Beau says, “Maybe I’ll like this new you better than I did the old you,” as casually as she can, but her voice cracks and her eyes start to water. She wipes her tears furiously away. “You’re here. That’s what matters. You’re here, and we can kick the asses of the shitheads who killed you and took half our party.”

“Plus, if you’re not around,” Nott says, “nobody else is going to blind people for us from afar. You’re _essential_ , Molly. Or whoever you are.”

“I literally met you days ago,” says Keg.

Something loosens in your chest. You breathe out, and a weight lifts off your shoulders. “Empty,” you say, but you nod, and tug the note out of your pocket. You point at the name, then to yourself.

“Molly, then,” says Beau. “Thank fuck. I’m shit at remembering names.”

You ball up the note and toss it at her head. She yelps and flips you off, and you grin at her, and you finally feel like you’ve come home.

Out of the corner of your eye, you catch sight of a raven, taking off into the distance.

(You’ll find a raven feather on your pillow, later. You’ll tuck it behind your ear, and one day you will tell a pale woman about how you got it, and she will tell you about Mollymauk Tealeaf, carnival barker, fortune teller, her closest friend.

It’s not a bad legacy to leave behind.)

\--

This is what you know:

Your name is Mollymauk Tealeaf, Molly to your friends. You have weird blood powers, although you’re still figuring them out. You’ve woken up in a shallow grave twice, but the second time someone made sure you’d know to find them, made sure you would come back to them. Half your party is missing, but you’ll get them back, and you’ve been promised a solid punch to the nose of the man who killed you. You like trinkets, and baubles, and other things. You think maybe you’ll start to search deeper into this Raven Queen, or this Moonweaver—you owe them both your life. And someone needs to make sure what happened to you doesn’t happen again.

Your name is Mollymauk Tealeaf, and you’re a member of the Mighty Nein.


End file.
